A sense of place

In her recently published book titled A Place Called Home: Quilting a Life of Joy on the Colorado Plateau, Janet Ross spoke to me of the need to develop and maintain a strong “sense of place”.
From the Preface of that book…
“…from a sense of place, we form a commitment to protect the place where we felt most at home. …some places just speak to you, fill your heart with joy…”
The place we call home becomes the repository of our family and cultural history. In the book, Janet stitches like a quilt, the story of how the entire Colorado Plateau, all 240,000 square miles of it, became her home.
Through her experiences spanning several decades, the images of her memories along with the unique topographic lines of the Plateau were etched permanently in her heart and soul.
She’s not the only one. This same place has become my repository of experiences that define me as a person. Though it’s been years since I have lived here full time, I have been fortunate to return on a regular basis to “fill my tank” with new memories and reflections on my days spent here.
I couldn’t have been older than six or seven when I discovered that a few feet from the back door of our house, I could cross two barbed wire fences and be in the largest playground in the world.
It was there that my own sense of place started to take form. From there I began to acquire what little wisdom I have in small quantities.
One June day in the early 1970s, my friend David Bronson and I looked up the ridge that goes all the way to Abajo Peak. After a long winter, the trail up that ridge was completely clear of snow. Getting to the summit would be easy.
We would hike to the top, listen to the radio chatter through the thin walls of the buildings for a minute or two, then take the short hop down the other side through the black timber to the North Creek Saddle where we would skip down the road to Dalton Springs and home.
Remember what I said about wisdom?
It was on that day that both of us learned what now seems so simple — that snow melts much slower on the north and west side of a peak than the south and east.
Yep, we not only had the steep slope and black timber to contend with, but there was also three to four feet of wet, heavy snow for us to trudge through.
Though we were just a couple of dumb kids, we made it — very wet, cold, and a whole lot wiser.
I could write a book or two about all the lessons I’ve learned from stomping around these hills and through the canyons that drain from them.
My feeling for San Juan County is the as the sense that gives a pigeon the ability to know where within the earth’s magnetic field home is and the direction to travel to get there.
“A Place Called Home” helped etch a little deeper, the memories and lessons that define me as a person.